​Music is medicine. A multi-venue, multi-day festival is on the eve of its second year February 14th, 15th and 16th 2020 in the form of a large-scale benefit for organizations vital to our community all centrally located in downtown Portland at Star Theater, Dante's, Kelly's Olympian and Valentine's. The second annual event includes Outside In, Q Center, P:ear and Planned Parenthood.​Not only is Rx Fest a means to raise money for those organizations but also another opportunity to provide a platform for community outreach and engagement where representatives from each nonprofit can speak directly to the public about their respective missions and services.

Through this one of the foundational cornerstones of the festival is apparent, to engage and assist the dialogue of health, both mental and physical, and wellness in our community by not only connecting individuals to the services available through the festival's selected nonprofit partners but also through one of the most healing environmental sources, live music and community.

Rx Fest was an idea incubating for several years, essentially utilizing the template of the annual Self Group Collective BDAY Bash fundraisers for Outside In, also held in February, and vastly expanding that concept with an exponentially larger scope. If a festival has a mentality or ethos this is one of community and collaborative collective effort.

We fully embrace and celebrate that this is in alignment with our multi-venue festival history in Portland, tapping prior incarnations of NXNW and MusicfestNW, as well as other amazing local festivals (TBA, Lose Yr Mind, All Together Festival, Pickathon, Soul'd Out, PDX Pop Now! and so many more). What we are ultimately doing is creating another opportunity for our community to come together, to together help ensure the vitality and viability of vital institutions while dually celebrating and supporting our wealth of incredible local music.

It's no accident this is happening during the most wintry month of the year. Legendary concert promoter Bill Graham tells us that we're crazy for trying to organize a festival on Valentine's weekend. Challenge accepted. We think this weekend is the best time to have an amazing reason to rally the crew and get out of the house.

We hope you'll join us as we continue to build slowly and get our feet wet (figuratively and likely literally) to kick off what we hope to be an event we'll all continue to look forward to with enthusiasm and excitement for the many February's to follow.